Multiple Domains for SEO

[Infinity Commercial Group]

I have heard different opinions on this question. Hopefully some of the knowledgeable people here will know the answer.

Is it better from a search engine stand point (to increase ranking) to upload the same site on to different domains? Is it better just to redirect the domain to your actual mane domain name.

For example Cloans for instance it seems that they have 100 domains (may be exaggerated a bit but probably close) that their different (same more or less) sites get you eventually back to their mane domain.

What kind of strategy are they using? Can some one give me the pros and cons?

What are some of your opinions?

[ResaleBroker]

Is it better from a search engine stand point (to increase ranking) to upload the same site on to different domains?

Google specifically recommends: "Don't create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content."

[judyo]

I have multiple domains in this way: I have a domain with my main keywords as my main, or default, url. Usually kind of long, too long to remember easily, usually with hyphens. Then I have a short url using a 301 permanent redirect to my default domain. That's what I use for off-line marketing like on my business cards, brochures, etc. Easy to type in & possibly remember.

I am currently with a template site that convinced all of us newbies to purchase multiple domains as they had started selling them. Many of us did & some feel they were penalized by Google for having duplicate content as our web host did not use the 301 permanent redirects. Well, not until we started squawking! After telling us we didn't need to do that & several of us trying to prove them wrong, they finally conceded & did the 301 redirects. Too late for some with their many domain names out there with the exact same content.

[frobn]

I don't know what may be better but my guess is that any improvement would be marginal at best. I believe that if you put your efforts into good site organization, adding fresh content and taking "care" with linking you will get the best results and with the least amount of effort.

[LA_Agent]

Is this the definitive answer on this topic?
I just reserved 6 hyphened domains and 2 my name only domains.
Isn't it fine to do this as long as I have the 301? Can't I also have 5 "mini" sites
that forward to my main?

[MikeDammann]

Let me ask you this, LA Agent:
why would you register additional hyphened ones? This can't be for branding purposes. The only reason I could see would be to somehow find new ways to get ranked higher. I would not recommend using them. Yahoo! itself has stated that they are keeping "an extra eye" on hyphened domain names since the percentage of spam sites having dashes is very alarming. So if you want to wave a red flag, go ahead otherwise my advice would be to forget you even own those domain names and redirect your 2 "your name domains", because as simple as it may sound:


that makes sense!

Mike

[LA_Agent]

Again, I am very green in all this.

Here is a web designer, optimizer I like:
http://www.rncinternet.com/real_estate.html

He says qoute:
"What does this mean? It means that participants now effectively have 5 web sites in 5 different domains with 5 different IP addresses (and 5 different names). - That is 5 web sites for the price of 1 !! All 5 sites are designed to place well in the major search engines and the mini sites direct visitors to some of the primary pages of the main web site as well as generate leads themselves."

Does that make sense? Is this a valid strategy?
Thanks for your patience..
Tom

[Oppenheimer Group]

I don't like the concept they promote, why have 5 mini sites you might as well have 5 full websites, just be sure they all are unique when it comes to content. I would want referals aged at least three years and find out how these 5 sites have worked for the referals.

[SEO Jason]

In my opinion I would rather have one large website than five mini-websites. The reason being for this is what has been called The Amazon Effect. Amazon ranks for almost anything you search for being it is such a powerful site. I do not think that Amazon would be anywhere near as powerful a site if each section was on it's own domain. That would just lower each section to be the same quality and size of a lot of smaller sites. The massive size of Amazon, the authority it gets for being so large is what gives it that power in the SERPs. So if i was competing for the top spot for keywords in my market, i would make sure that i have a very large site with original content that is better than my competitor's websites. If you have the mini-sites on the same domain as well, than i think that they would get more credit for being related to the other site and making a larger site than they would be if there were considered it's own mini-site.

Hope this makes sense, sometimes I have a hard time putting ideas down into words.

[LA_Agent]

Well...now I'm confused. Hmmm. Guess I'll just keep reseaching this vexing
problem.
Thanks!